Wikimedia Foundation

Ensuring free knowledge for future generations

Access to knowledge is a fundamental human right. The Wikimedia Endowment is our enduring commitment to a world of freely shared knowledge, now and in perpetuity.

We believe that knowledge is a foundation. It is a foundation for human potential, a foundation for freedom, a foundation for opportunity. Wikipedia is the world’s largest free knowledge ecosystem — a public trust for the common good — built by people, for people.

Giving Today

Giving Tomorrow

The Wikipedia Legacy Society is ensuring that Wikipedia provides free knowledge to the world, forever. Each member has committed to making a legacy gift to the Wikimedia Endowment through estate planning.

Want to join the Wikipedia Legacy Society? Take the pledge today and make a planned gift to the Wikimedia Endowment.

Request our guide to planned giving

Name*

Email*

Why an Endowment?

Like other public trusts, such as universities and libraries, the Wikimedia Foundation is caretaker of an immense repository of knowledge—and thereby humanity and culture—with the imperative of increasing and ensuring access for all.

The Wikimedia Endowment will conserve and expand the world’s largest free knowledge ecosystem. We strongly believe that the Endowment is not only a necessary safeguard for the millions of articles, media, and resources created by Wikipedia contributors, but also a springboard for innovating the way we curate and deliver knowledge to the world.

Building the Wikimedia Endowment includes long-term strategic planning and investment in the Wikimedia vision, Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation and our volunteers, donors, partners and affiliates around the world. When fully funded, Wikimedia Endowment income will help realize a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

"Wikipedia stands alone in the online world, providing information and knowledge to anyone, anywhere, without cost."

—
Annette Campbell-White, Wikimedia Endowment Advisory Board Member

Our projects

Wikipedia was launched in 2001 with a big vision: “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.” Now, with over 50 million articles in 300 languages and serving more than 500 million users every month, it is the only non-profit site in the top ten most visited on the web.

Wikimedia also supports a range of additional offerings to further enrich the commons, providing vital resources, knowledge and infrastructure.

Select projects supported by the endowment:

A free and open storage for the structured data of all Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, and others

Advisory Board

The Wikimedia Endowment Advisory Board – comprised of leaders from finance, education, technology, and business – is guiding the endowment as it grows and supports the Wikimedia projects in perpetuity.

Wikimedia Endowment

The Endowment has been established, with an initial contribution by Wikimedia Foundation, as a Collective Action Fund at Tides Foundation. Tides is a public charity with a 40-year track record of holding and managing charitable funds for nonprofit organizations. The purpose of the Wikimedia Endowment is to act as a permanent safekeeping fund to generate income to support the operations and activities of the Wikimedia projects in perpetuity. An Advisory Board, nominated by the Wikimedia Foundation and appointed by Tides, will make recommendations to Tides related to the Endowment. Tides or the Wikimedia Foundation may choose to transfer the Endowment from Tides to the Wikimedia Foundation, or other charities identified by the Wikimedia Foundation that are engaged in activities that further the Wikimedia Endowment’s purpose. Following any transfer, the Endowment would continue to act for the purpose of being a permanent, income-generating fund to support the Wikimedia projects.

Wikipedia® and other Wikimedia project names and logos are registered trademarks of the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. Text licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 unported. Images are freely licensed with attribution.